Thursday, January 17, 2008

Some readers are reporting a spike in reported subscribers that don't match the actual count in FeedBlitz. We're trying to get to the bottom of the issue right now. It isn't a spam attack or anything unpleasant like that, probably just a previously unknown defect (ok, a bug) somewhere in the code. Updates will follow as and when.

Update 10:29 pm est A bug that caused circulation data to get out of sync with the poller has been found and fixed. Metrics for today (Thursday 17th) may well be off, but should be all straightened out from now on. In other words, Friday's metrics will be what you expect.

Update Monday Jan 21

Drat. Seems clear that this fix didn't work for everyone, so we're having another go at it! Tomorrow's metrics will reflect the new code.

Double-drat. Turns out one of the jobs on one of the servers was not updated (it is now). So today's metrics may well be wrong for some, so Wednesday is now the first day that we'll be in the clear on this one. Darn.

You still have a problem. Here it is 19 Jan and my stats that reflect 18 Jan are still out of whack. I only have 26 Feedblitz email subscriptions, however my feedburner stats says I have over 100...there is still a problem

Looking at my feedburner stats at feedburner.com, they're right back where they ought to be. I'm not sure when the FeedBurner chicklets update immediately (for example, our chicklets update daily mid-afternoon).

Now, that said, there are good reasons why the number of subs reported to FeedBurner may be larger than the count shown in your FeedBLitz account. That's because there may well be independent subscriptions set up in FeedBlitz to your feed, in addition to the ones set up via your subscription form or import.

So say you have 250 subscribers in your account, and there are 14 other subscriptions set up in FeedBlitz that track your feed. We report 250+14 = 264 readers to FeedBurner, because that's how many subscribers are tracking your feed with us.

Finally, if you set up a weekly or monthly newsletter with us, we only poll your feed weekly or monthly, so for longer cycles it may take longer for the metrics to get straight. Otherwise, for most publishers on daily cycles, the metrics should be correct. If you want a little more reconciling the numbers ping me at phil@feedblitz.com directly and I'm happy to explain.

Sorry Phil, but something is still way off! I have only a very few subscribers here -- 7 to be exact. This was being reported correctly through Feedburner until a few days ago. But the problem has not been corrected by your fix. Yesterday, Feedblitz was showing as 7,457 subscribers, and this morning, I see 416 from Feedblitz. I realize that the stats are reported in arrears, but since you say it was corrected on Thursday, I would expect the stats to have settled down by now.

I don't think my numbers are anywhere near correct. I have 32 email subscribers through Feedblitz and other subscribers through other methods.

I am seeing on Saturday 1/20 the highest number yet of Feedblitz subscribers = 687. That's extremely way off.

Can you explain? It had been lower on Friday only showing 71, and Thursday showing 131, Wed - 388. It is all over the place.

As mentioned only 32 EMAIL subscriptions, what other type of FEEDBLITZ subscriptions are there? I have Firefox, Google, Yahoo, Feedfetcher, Labrador, etc. but these are not Feedblitz and counted up separately.

ok, a new fix was posted late yesterday (Sun), which means that FeedBurner will be counting using that fix today which means that numbers you see tomorrow (Tues) will (with luck) be correct since the numbers they show tomorrow will be for activity today.

Your subscribers are visible to you in FeedBlitz. Got to the Newsletter Center and click the subscribers icon. If they're not there then that means you're not logged in using the email address that created the syndication in FeedBlitz. Log in using the right account and your subscribers will appear.